Jahii Carson recognized on and off the court

ASU redshirt freshman guard Jahii Carson has been one of the team’s best performers — on and off the court.

Carson was one of four student-athletes to be recognized as ASU’s Student-Athletes of the Fall 2012 Semester this week. He posted his highest GPA and averages 10 hours of study hall a week according to the press release.

“It’s exciting especially to get it over other athletes,” Carson said Tuesday. “I know some athletes have like 4.0 GPAs, but I worked hard to get it. I never took any days off, especially with being in the gym and trying work on my game as much as I can. I didn’t have much free time to study, so it’s amazing for me to be able to get that.”

As it’s been well-documented, Carson was ruled academically ineligible last season. From The Arizona Republic’s report of the NCAA’s ruling at the time:

“His previous ACT score and core-course GPA did not meet the NCAA's sliding scale for initial academic eligibility. He again took the ACT, but the score took weeks to post. ASU recently learned Carson had come up just short on the test. The school appealed, but it was denied.”

Carson said the extra year gave him time to adjust to college life and get stronger on the court. Along with his academic accolade, Carson was named to the Wayman Tisdale Award Midseason Watch List (presented to the national freshman of the year) and was as a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award, which is given to the nation’s top point guard. He averages 17.3 points and 5.5 assists a game.

Carson has over 7,000 followers on the Twitter, and as expected, not everyone will have positive things to say about the point guard.

“There’s always U-of-A fans that try to pitch in what they got going on,” Carson said. “‘That College Algebra must be tough,’ or like, ‘Elementary Algebra must be tough.’ I just laugh at that type of stuff. It motivates me to see my Student-Athlete of the semester picture up there on Twitter, and they get to see it.”